Home Run

Lets see now lets see. As it turned out, we actually did make it as a group down to Tapachula, the final destination of my bike trip. We were, and then we werent, but then we did have time to make it, and it was great to ride in, rather than limp in on the bus and seperate from the group.

I think ill write this up briefly though. The last bit of the ride, rather than fist in the air whoop whooping our way home, i was actually finding it really hard, and was pretty frustrated. Like when youre writing the last few lines of a letter and your hand hurts the most. Strange reaction to have, but it didnt bother me since theres been enough highs to last me a while yet.

I met a man and his family, and went back to see them later in the night and gave them my bike. That felt really good, not just because it was 'a nice thing to do' but also because it felt so liberating to get shot of it all and just be on foot without all the hassles that come with wheeling it around. The sense of finality was overwhelming, and it was good.

A bit of a booze up, a last supper, we said our fairwells and i got a taxi to the airport in the morning and flew up to Tijuana, south side of the USa border. I was smiling and happy rather than sad though. I know ill see them all again, and theyll be friends for life.

Some probelms at the tijuana border control, where they made me feel like a criminal, and well i wont explain it all because its just stupid. I had 4 nights in san diego where it was ncie and cool, and spent it with Natalie the swede (who i met the forst time round), and i could wear a pair of trousers in the daytime too. Jeff, a friend who was restoring a Yacht at the posh boat yard gave us a nice evening on the boat. I got a lift up to LA the next day from someone who was going that way (Nancy Chong, with a nice little truck, but a horrid Gloria Estefan soundtrack) , and met up with Mattias and Timo, whod been so good to me last time i was there, and had another great time in a posh (im posh arent I) restaurant. It was so dark i couldnt see the plate, but i know it was a nice lamb chop.

Got the greyhound up to San francisco, and now im staying with Nic in the hostel that she works at. Coming into the city across the giant Bay bridge at night felt like being in Tron or Metropolis, but without the lazer tanks or robot germans. We'll do a short road trip north tomorrow, to Mount Chasta (i htink thats what it is) witha coupld of others for the weekend. Nics arranged that which is really nice. Im to do the driving which shouild be fun.

Its nice to bookend all of this by going back through the places i started at, and seeing all the people whove made the trip what it's been. Digesting the bike trip
will take a bit of time, but its quite exciting to be able to look at a
map of the world and be able to see a big chunk that i did just on a bike.
Ive done 2600 miles on the nose since the start of it.

A guy called Charlie approached me in the street last night just after id arrived here, whod spotted my bike panniers, and turns out he was doing a trip right around the edges of USA, and stopping off in San Francisco for the night. We shared some stories, and gave the nod to each others beard's. Its like being part of a little group of people, you dont know them, but theyre all really nice and probably your friend.

Soon ill be home and.... well i dont really know, but i think ill enjoy that too.

Vision... blurring...

holy smokes its hot... i havnt stopped sweating in days, and imnot even a sweaty person. We are on the final push south now. Ive no hope of getting to Guatemala unfortunatly. Id have really have liked that, it would have been a great end to the trip, just to have crossed the border. But ah well... itd stupid to be down about that.

I have 5 days riding remaining before my flight back up to Tijuana from Tapachula, and im in funny times. Im really ready to go home now.

Which is a good thing!

I think that means ive finished with all the reasons and whats of why i wanted to come out here. Or its just me at breaking point. speaking fo which, theres beena lot of breaking points in the last few days, for everyone. But one thing about this small group of friends ive been thoroughly impressed with is everyones abilty to let things go and get on eith things. Its been astonishing, and hopefuly somehitng i can take away with me.

<--- this isnt me
Its been windy, but its wind like from a hair dryer set to hot. We arrived and Salina Cruz 5 days ago ish, and it was the windiest place ive ever been to. I mean i felt sick. It was like the end of the world was coming but no one cared. Apparently its like that all the time, but i found it really disturbing. It was pink from the sunset when we rode in and we codulnt even stay on the road. Crap was blowing al over the place and evertyone just did their thing like normal. A bit like the end of Ghostbusters, or the storm in Philidelphia Experiment if youve seen that. So i didnyt like it there... which is odd for me, itd usually take something more than just weather to put me off something. (but it was scary!)

My tent s not really geared for wind. Its like being trapped inside a half inflated bouncy castle with a bunch of fat kids with their shoes on jumping all around and laughing at you.

THere are 250km left, which with my maths is 50km a day to go. which isnt much, but the heat is pretty debilitating anytime after 11am. lots of water. Weve just left Oaxaca state, and passed into Chiapas, which is the southern most state in mexico. Its also the poorest, and is very jungle like and humid.

Right now we are in Ariaga. Me, tom and curtis are in an internet place which is long and thin, its about 40 degrees. theres music from everything outside and we´re getting stared at a lot, but in a nice way, i think. Ken and Matt are off at a bike shop getting some spokes fixed, they ran into each other this morning and broke a few things. I bought an ice lolly kind of thing from an old man who was walking a cool box along the hard shoulder of the highway we were on. He waved them at us like lightsabres, It was so hot, funny place to walk. Mine tasted of vegetables.

I keep thinking about rain, and that itd be great to just walk in the cold. Ive really forgotten what its like. But i think i prefer it. Last night we had a motel, which had cable tv and we watched robocop one two and three. and then terminator. Here is ken at the bikeshop. I bet this guy has fixed a few bikes in his time, we had the right place.




But But but but but but but but but, ths is all no news because - I am an Uncle now!! Ive just had news from home that my sister Ruth has given birth today, to Fred :) Im looking forward to meeting him, and in the years to come forcing my interests onto him. I think id be good at reading stories too, ill give that a go. I bet he likes Thundercats...

Now ill get back to sweating and growing more hair, and work on my body odour. Actually we had a shower in the place last night.


And more pictures are in here if you like: http://afilmcalleddads.com/photos/set15

Uh Oh

THings are gloomy now. But lets not let that get us down.

We arrived in Puerto Escondido on boxing day, on the bus trip which was as bad as expected. Not any worse, but i did lose my bike helmet in with the luggage, and ken´s bags were ´lost´but then reappeared when he offered the bus cleaners some money to find them. It was pretty bad but if thats the worst thing that happened while in mexico, we wont complain. In all i havnt felt any danger or worry really.

The silver lining was meeting David, almost as soon as we wheeled into town at midnight with no place to stay. He was just finishing work, and offered to put us all up in his house. It was an amazing offer, and we ended up being there for 6 or 7 nights. He was fantastic, and we had a great time with him. he ran a Disco club, which was a pretty funky building that looked arabian and seemed to have no roof but it did. And bats. We helped him out with some bar work and it was good stuff. two drink options- bottle of beer or shot of tequila made it fortunately simple enough for us. But i think david made more drinks money off us than all the customers combined. Im pretty sure he did actually.

Once again we met up with Ben and Corrine, our australian friends and they had a link to a great new years party. it was very indulgent and i wont go into any of it. Hey that sounded rock n roll. Here is our wholesome chrismtas dinner in Acupulco---->

Then some things begand to fall apart. Matt lost his passport and all docuemnts somewhere in town. Hes had nought but trouble trying to police reports, emergency passports and his cards replaced. He took an overnight trip to Oaxaca City to a consulate, but it looks like he cant geta new passport for 6 weeks, meaning he cannot continue through central america. Theres reasons for everything that i dont understrand, but thats wat it looks to be. We´re all miserable about that, especially because its his first trip outside of Canada. Ken became ill with something, which kncoked him out for 3 days but it hes ok today. It looks as though time and money will affect all the group, as events happen back home for everyone and priorities are changing.

Finally after these delays we set off tomrorow, trying to get to the border. Its almost 700km though, and the heat is almost too much to walk around in, maybe itll be easier moving on the bike though. Im not bringing the bike back either, so ill try and find someone nice to give it to, hopefully in Guatemala.

Phewey. Doooom! Lightning!! We´re chin up folks though, and once we start moving again moods will lighten. I have only 15 days left before i fly up from south mexico back upto tijuana to begin my trip back through USA and out of san francisco and back to Manchester (where it will be raining). That all begins on the 21st Jan, so i dont even know if i can get to Guatemala before turning back. Booo. Id like to at least cross the border for a day. Ill face some kind of problem when i get up to the mexico/america border since i have some issues that are again too complicated and boring to explain, so lets hope im not stuck in tijuana border control quarantine.

Its easy to be glum about it... and harder to remember that the original 500 mile trip to LA grew to what´s now over 2000, and I feel amazing for having that opportunity. Its not finished yet, so pick up your heels boy!

more pictures are inside http://www.afilmcalleddads.com/photos/set13 and http://www.afilmcalleddads.com/photos/set14

Going Christmas Loco

Acupulco! How wierd it is to have christmas here! it must be at least 30 degrees and its very very humid.. i doubt santa would keep his red coat on long. I really did miss the christmas dinner (we had a small steak sort of dinner in the afternoon outside at a restaurant, and taco´s in the evening) but am looking forward to the homecoming xmas dinner in february back in old whitley bay. Yay!! Shhh you shodulnt wish time away should you. I really missed my family yesterday (which is a good thing, isnt it).

Me and Matt jumped in the sea on christmas day afternoon because it was so hot. It looked like evryone had brought their families to spend the day in the bay. How different to being at home with the family? THey had all their gear there and were camped for the day. It was incredible, nice and warm water and much joy and merriment. It was splashing and hand stands and salty water and avoiding boats, and to be in amongst all the fascinating faces in the nice water made the day for me. Later on i think i did some wrestling, but that was a different kind of merriment. We met a small man called Manwell (who had 13 children) and all his family, they treated us to a beer by the water from their cooler box. His grandma was eating a corn on the cob for over an hour, she didnt have any teeth.

Getting to Acupulco was horrid though. We did a 30 hour journey from Mazatlan (which we had thought was going to be 16) in a baking oven of a broken bus. The man next to me did a quick hail mary just as we were setting off, he obviously knew more than I did. I actually was wishing for the driver to crash into the wall at one stage, just so we could stop all the winding and rolling that never seemed to end. If channel 4 did a Top 100 Worst Bus Journeys countdown programme, i think youd have to stay up late to watch the bit about this one. Anyway, somewhere on that journey, we passed a time zone but didnt know it, so we missed our connecting bus today by an hour :( Here there are a million VW beetles acting as taxis, each of them the same blue and white, which add so much to the feel of it. Its a sight to see.

The plan is this- we bus south today for another 7 hours, which will take us to Peurto Escandido (bad spell), and will bike the 700km to guatemala. Ive got my yellow fever shot now, so its all go. By about the 8th of january we should be at the border, and then on the 20th of January ill have to leave everyone and turn back. Thats going to be sad withouta doubt, but i know ive got things to do and if i move the flight once more, ill be in the same situation again. Ho humm.. ill write more on that in a different one. But we musnt think aboiut the end. And i should be quiet about all this bussing around- what wimps!

Went to the cinema back up in Mazatlan, to watch Casino Royale (good film!). There was a Cricket in the cinema somewhere, which added a nice atmosphere to the quiet bits :) Ive bought some rubber clogs which the nasty canadians hate, but i like em.

Weve hot 3 big cities in a row, and its al quiet intense. Right, its nearly time to get back on the hell hound bus again. I feel terrible today, but am getting better. Its boxing day!